Understanding and Preventing Violence, Volume 2: Biobehavioral Influences (1994)
Chapter: HETEROGENEOUS NATURE OF HUMAN AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE
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the organism under seminocturnal (its major activity occurs at night) conditions.
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carrying out detailed, inclusive analyses of behavior that simultaneously record other categories of activity in addition to threat and attack (these can be very revealing in determining how a biological manipulation changes aggressiveness).
HETEROGENEOUS NATURE OF HUMAN AGGRESSION AND VIOLENCE
Aggressive behavior is certainly no less heterogeneous in our own species. The classification of Buss (1971), based on three dichotomies, provides a clear indication of the diversity of human aggression as viewed through the eyes of a social psychologist. Aggression, according to Buss, may be physical or verbal, active or passive, and direct or indirect. Although it is easy to think of animal analogies for punching, stabbing, or shooting (physical/active/direct aggression), it is much harder to think of animal analogies for "failing to carry out a necessary task" (physical/passive/indirect aggression) or "refusing consent" (verbal/passive/indirect aggression). Obviously, the social psychologist includes a much wider range of activities under the heading aggression than does the biologist.
This diversity of human aggression, has led to an enormous range of methods for assessing the attribute in our species. These broadly fall into two categories. In the first, behavior is assessed in situ by seeking the opinions of peers or by questionnaires. These include examining interactions in preschool play groups, determining the reactions (verbally or physiologically) to films or written material, creating experimental conflict situations (such as use of the "hostility" machine), studying individuals in natural high-stress situations, looking at participation in group activities in which hostile outcomes are probable (certain sports and committees), responding as observers in sporting situations (e.g. "football hooliganism"), and even investigating participation in riots. The second category involves relating physiological events to behavioral characteristics largely determined on the basis of past events. These include studies of convicted criminals (here the material is often divided into largely sexual and nonsexual, and a distinction is made between "impulsive" and "premeditated" crime). One should note here that studying the "same'' crime does not always mean that one is dealing with the same phenomenon (e.g., rape is said by several authorities such as Groth, 1979, to have several etiologies and is generated by a plethora of influences).
